Things To Know About Public Records Request Response
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was passed by the Congress in 1966, and it allows any person (citizen or not) to request records in possession and control of a Federal agency as well as its components. While the definition of records varies from one state to another, but a record can be in the form of books, maps, papers, machine-readable materials, photographs as well as information stored electronically like blog posts, websites, email, chat logs, and SMS messages. So how does public records request response work? When agencies get a records request, they must be in a position to provide access to the public records within a specified time frame. But due to the fact that FOIA laws also vary per state, it can be a bit confusing how long a particular state has to respond to a request. For instance, Vermont has the shortest timeframe (2 days) while Maryland has the longest timeframe (30 days). Close to 25 percent of all states skew towards 3 to 5 days while a little over a thi